AMNH SALT SCIENCE Ashley Pagnotta (very old novae), Ben Oppenheimer (chemistry of hot Jupiter atmosphere), MS + Dave Zurek (Magellanic dwarf novae) Adric Reidel (young red dwarfs) Jackie Faherty (brown dwarf rotations) June 6/2014

Pagnotta: Eventually, we will produce long term light curves for all known galactic classical novae, such as this one for V603 Aquilae. Our light curves will be anchored by modern magnitudes from SALT and other sources.

BV Cen is a U Gem/SS Cyg-type dwarf nova that has shown an increase in the time between its DN outbursts over the past half century, indicating a decrease in the accretion rate and possible nova eruption in its past. Plummer & Horn (2009)

We used SALTICAM on BV Cen to obtain a total of 30 minutes of integration time using the Hα filter to search for a nova shell; none present AMNH-002 BV Cen

Additionally, we continue our survey of modern magnitudes of post-nova systems, searching for evidence of secular change that may confirm or challenge the hibernation theory, for example with V604 Aquilae AMNH-003 B g’r’

Shara and Zurek Dwarf Novae and Old Novae in the LMC – 9 epochs over 2 months u and g filters sdss gsdss u Note Gradients across images

~40 IMAGES IN EACH FILTER ARE DITHERTED CO-ADD IMAGES, BUT HIGH DATA VALUES (i.e. stars) REJECTED sdss usdss g

FLATTENED, COSMIC-RAY CLEANED, COSMETICALLY CLEANED, ALIGNED, CO-ADDED IMAGES u ~g ~25… deep enough to detect quiescent cataclysmic variables Large amplitude blue variables seen between epochs

~1% of the stars are very blue (u-g < 0) The most variable are cataclysmic binaries sdss usdss u-g

Oppenheimer: Measurement of Wasp 43b Transit Spectrum The hottest transiting exoplanet Period = hours M =~ 2 x Jupiter R ~ R(Jupiter) semimajor axis = AU Mstar = 0.58 Msun Goal : Transmission spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere INITIAL Method: {Star alone} - {Star minus Planet} =Planet i.e. Primary transit spectrum minus secondary transit spectrum =PLANET ATMOSPHERE SPECTRUM ULTIMATE GOAL: SPECTROPOLARIMETRY AROUND THE ORBIT SALT RSS longslit pg0900 grating data on 1-15 and 2-06 of 2014 in transit and out of transit 1200 seconds exposure In process of reducing above data.

: :14 Observations: 1 (300.2s) 22:42: :47:23 5 (300.2s) 23:03: :08:41 2 (300.2s) 22:47: :52:436 (300.2s) 23:09: :14:00 3 (300.2s) 22:53: :58:027 (300.2s) 23:14: :19:20 4 (300.2s) 22:58: :03:218 (300.2s) 23:19: :24:

: :57 Observations: 1 (300.2s) 21:42: :47:51 2 (300.2s) 21:48: :53:10 3 (300.2s) 21:53: :58:30 4 (300.2s) 21:58: :03:

Un-calibrated Results Wasp 43 b in transit spectra Wasp 43b out of transit spectra Difference Spectrum

Next Steps Apply instrument function to the data Identify possible lines in the spectrum…NaI 5889 Angstroms Or evidence of broadband scattering and cloud cover

Expect ~2-3 AMNH papers in the coming 6 months